Russian Information Operations and War in Ukraine—What Can We Expect and Do?
Speaker(s): Pomerantsev, P. (Johns Hopkins University); Rid, T. (Johns Hopkins University)
Date: 17 March 2022
Speaker Session Summary
SMA hosted a speaker session with Dr. Thomas Rid (Professor of Strategic Studies, Johns Hopkins University) and Mr. Peter Pomerantsev (Senior Fellow, Johns Hopkins University) as part of its SMA EUCOM Speaker Series.
While it is hard to process all the information coming out of Ukraine, there is an overwhelming agreement that Russia is the bad actor. President Zelensky is winning the information war against Putin because of his strength of presence and Russia’s overt aggression. Dr. Rid commented that Putin’s decision making has been relatively inept; citing Putin’s statement about the need to denazify Ukraine—whose president is Jewish—and trying to steal Ukraine’s national identity. By stating that Ukrainians and Russians are one people, Putin inadvertently strengthened Ukrainians’ will to fight. Mr. Pomerantsev commented that Putin’s own messaging has alienated much of the world and united a global resistance to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Also, it appears that many Russian financial institutions were not prepared for Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.
It has also been interesting to see how conspiracy theories like Ukraine’s bioweapons have grown over time. The US should avoid examining only Russian information operations and look at Ukraine’s and others as well. Dr. Rid commented that information operations seem to run on a global crowdsourced production line, which can transform a conspiracy theory into a media headline. Mr. Pomerantsev commented that Russia has been able to win over the favor of certain populations in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. However, Russia has lost the information war in the US and Western Europe. The US and Western countries should be trying to figure out how to reach Russia’s domestic population with information. There needs to be a more established communication network and communication infrastructure to deal with non-classified information and information that has already been leaked to the public.
Rid and Pomerantsev Biographies
Dr. Thomas Rid is Professor of Strategic Studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of AdvancedInternational Studies. Dr. Rid is the founding director of the Alperovitch Institute for Cybersecurity Studiesat JHU. He co-leads a newly launched, one-year MA degree: the MA in Strategy, Cybersecurity, andIntelligence (MASCI). Dr. Rid's most recent book, Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformationand Political Warfare, was translated into seven languages. Dr. Rid is currently working on a book on therise of digital counterintelligence.
Mr. Peter Pomerantsev is the award-winning author of Nothing is True and Everything is Possible:Adventures in Modern Russia, and This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality. He is aSenior Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, where he directs the Arena Program, a research initiative thatexplores contemporary propaganda and what to do about it. He has testified on the subject of informationwar to the Senate, Congress, and UK Parliament, and he was a Specialist Advisor on the UK ParliamentaryCommittee on Disinformation. The Guardian called him “the pre-eminent war reporter of our time, theMartha Gellhorn or Ed Murrow of the brutal campaigns against fact,” while P. J. O’Rourke called Nothingis True “the strangest book of note I have ever read.”
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